Alexander James Wlson was born 13 April, 1921, son of Major-General
Bevil Thomson Wilson, CB, DSO, by his wife Florence Erica, daughter
of
Sir John Starkey, 1st Baronet, and was educated at Winchester College,
and New College, Oxford (BA Law, MA).

He was awarded the Military Cross in 1945; MBE 1948; CBE 1966; KBE,
1974.

Sir James married in 1958, the Hon. Jean Margaret Paul, second daughter
of the 2nd Baron Rankeillour, by whom he had two sons.

The Times
Obituary

Lieutenant-General Sir James Wilson
Rifleman who served in Africa, Italy, India and Cyprus, and wrote about
football for The Sunday Times

JIM WILSON was heart and soul a Rifleman, and his ambition
was to go down in history as a latter-day Sir John Moore. He was, however,
better known as a football writer for more than 30 years from the late
1950s for The Sunday Times. In his military career, he craved startling
originality and was no respecter of any form of red tape or regulations
which he thought cramped initiative or reduced versatility. Indeed,
the extremes to which he would go to improve the fighting efficiency
and welfare of his men made him something of an enfant terrible in the
eyes of the military establishment, whereas his outspoken comments on
professional football endeared him to his readers and everyone associated
with the game. He himself used to delight in recalling that he was one
of the few officers to incur the Army Boards displeasure and yet
reach the rank of general officer.
Alexander James Wilson was the son of a distinguished sapper, Major-General
B. T. Wilson, an equally original thinker, who commanded 53rd (Welsh)
Division in the Second World War. He was educated at Winchester, where
he was an exhibitioner and played cricket and football for the school,
and at New College, Oxford, where he read law, and played cricket for
the university and the Nottinghamshire 2nd XI. He joined the Army in
September 1940, serving in the ranks of The Kings Own Shropshire
Light Infantry until he was commissioned into the Rifle Brigade in May
1941 after the short wartime course at Sandhurst.

He was posted to the 10th Battalion, the Motor Battalion of the 26th
Armoured Brigade in the 6th Armoured Division, before it left for the
Torch landings in French North Africa. He fought with the division in
the 10th and then the 2nd Battalion, from the North African landings
in November 1942 right through the Tunisian and Italian campaigns to
the final battle of annihilation of the German armies trapped south
of the River Po in May 1945  as platoon commander, intelligence
officer, adjutant and company commander  without being seriously
wounded.

He won the MC in Italy for, as the citation says,
outstanding qualities of leadership, initiative, planning and
an intense desire to engage the enemy whenever possible, which
sums up his abilities as a young officer succinctly.

After the war he was posted to the Indian Military
Academy at Dehra Dun, where he had two politically difficult years as
its last British adjutant. After the partition of India in 1947, he
was appointed private secretary to the C-in-C of the Pakistan Army,
General Sir Douglas Gracey, to whom Wilsons legal training, mental
agility and riflemans proverbial charm, which he possessed in
good measure, were great assets.

On his return from India in 1950, he went to the
Staff College, to which he was to return in 1955 as an instructor. In
the meantime he had commanded a company in the 1st Battalion in the
British Army of the Rhine, been brigade major of 91st Lorried Infantry
Brigade in 11th Armoured Division, and served with the 1st Battalion
again, this time in Kenya at the height of the Mau Mau campaign, being
mentioned in dispatches. He was a stimulating teacher at Camberley,
ridiculing the handbook Staff Duties in the Field and demanding quick
and original thought, especially of any cavalry or infantry student
he considered unprofessional or pedantic. Ironically, in view of his
contempt for the niceties of administration, he was sent to the Administrative
Staff College at Henley in 1959, and then had his nose rubbed more firmly
in the subject as second-in-command of the 3rd Battalion for a year
in the British Army of the Rhine. Promoted brevet lieutenant-colonel,
he won his release back into the training field as GSO 1 at Sandhurst
in 1960.

Much to his regret, he was never to command a Rifle
Brigade battalion. The Green Jackets have always been exporters of talent
to other regiments: Wilson was exported to command the 1st Battalion
of the XXth Lancashire Fusiliers, a regiment that he made very much
his own. He emulated Sir John Moore in the originality of its training,
welcoming new ideas and never standing on his dignity.

However, it is said, perhaps maliciously, that it
received the worst administrative reports of any unit in the Army while
he was in command. What is more certain, however, is that he became
an avid supporter of Manchester United from then on.

Unorthodox though his command of The Lancashire Fusiliers
may have been, he was promoted brigadier in 1965 and sent out to Cyprus
as chief of staff to the Commander of the United Nations Force, Cyprus,
General Thimayya of the Indian Army, with whom he established an immediate
rapport.

Sadly Thimyyas premature death ended their
partnership, and Wilson acted as UN Force Commander until a new one
was appointed. He proved himself ideally suited to the international
environment, with just the right lightness of touch, coupled with undoubted
professionalism, which made him popular with all the different national
contingents.

He came home from Cyprus in 1966 to command 147th
(TA) Infantry Brigade and a year later was appointed director of army
recruiting, a job that benefited enormously from his originality and
enthusiasm. Always prepared to try out new ideas, he was far from popular
with Ministry of Defence civil servants and Treasury officials because
of his constant flouting of the rules and demands for more resources
to keep the Army in the public eye and so improve recruiting. His proposals
became known disparagingly as Jim Wilsons gimmicks.

He went back to Lancashire in 1970 as a major-general
to be GOC North-West District with his headquarters at Preston. There,
he became a well-known and well-loved public figure west of the Pennines,
not least for his loyal support of Manchester United, but also because
he entered into the life of the northern counties and fought the running
battles for them over the Territorial Army reorganisations of the early
1970s with his old opponents in Whitehall. The North was sorry to see
him go when he was recalled to Whitehall as Vice-Adjutant-General in
1972.

Promoted lieutenant-general at the end of 1973, he
had his last appointment in the Army as GOC South East District 
the largest army district at that time and the one with the greatest
number of field force units  with his headquarters at Aldershot.

The Heath Government was in its death throes, with
the miners strike and the three-day week bringing frequent demands
for military assistance from central and local government. Wilson was
again in his element and did his utmost to provide what was needed as
far as his limited resources would allow, without bothering overmuch
about the rules for getting help to the civil power.

After he retired from the Army in 1977, he joined
the Tobacco Advisory Council as its chairman, and in 1983 became its
chief executive. He was also a director of the Standard Commercial Corporation
and of Standard Wool. He was delighted to have more time to devote to
reporting on football, and serving on the Sports Council as Services
representative.

A good speaker as well as a journalist, he was much in demand. Wherever
football was played, he was welcomed as Jim, particularly
by northcountrymen, who are notoriously good judges of character. Wilson
had run the army football team in the 1950s when it contained such figures
as the future England captain Bobby Charlton. In 1957 he became association
football correspondent of The Sunday Times, a post he held for a year
before becoming joint football correspondent for a further year with
Brian Glanville. Thereafter he was a football writer for the paper until
1990.
His memoir Unusual Undertakings was published in 2002.

He married the Hon Jean Margaret Paul, daughter of the 2nd Baron
Rankeillour, in 1958. They had two sons. He is survived by her, two
sons and a stepson and stepdaughter. Another stepdaughter died in 1986.

Lieutenant-General Sir James Wilson, KBE, MC, GOC
SE District, 1974-77, chief executive Tobacco Advisory Council, 1983-85,
and football writer, was born on April 13, 1921. He died on December
17, 2004, aged 83.